PDF Summary:The Slight Edge, by Jeff Olson

Are you frustrated with the results of your goals? Do you want to know what the secret is to achieving long-term success? You might be surprised to learn that the secret is, in fact, quite simple. In The Slight Edge, Jeff Olson teaches that success is built over time by committing to simple, small, daily disciplines.

In this guide, we show you how to use Slight Edge principles to create a vision for the goals you want to achieve, commit to small disciplines to build towards the results of those goals, and sidestep any potential roadblocks on your way to success. We’ll also support and add texture to these ideas with the research of experts in the worlds of entrepreneurship, neuroscience, and psychology.

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The results of your habits give you insight into whether they are good or bad. You know you have good habits when you get the results you want, and you know you have bad habits when you don’t get the results you want.

For example, let’s say your goal is to save a certain amount of money, and one of your habits is to save $35 each week from your paycheck, but another habit is to spend $5 on coffee each day. After a few weeks, you notice that you’re not losing money, but your savings are not increasing either. This tells you that your habit of spending $5 on coffee every day is canceling out your habit of saving $35 each week, which means these habits are bad for your goals. In this case, you could change your savings habit by saving more each week so you can keep the daily coffee habit, or you could stop buying coffee.

The Science of Changing Your Habits Olson notes that to achieve your goals, you must change bad habits. But how exactly do you change habits?

Science shows you can only change a habit by replacing it with a new one. Complicating things, according to research, we’re not consciously aware of at least 40% of our habits. Therefore, to change a harmful habit, you have to dismantle the subconscious mechanisms fueling that habit and plant new, more productive wiring in your brain. You can do this by building what’s called an “if-then” plan, where you consciously train your mind to respond in a specific way to a specific situation.

To implement an if-then plan, use the following process:

• Write down which habit you want to change and how changing this habit will improve your life.

• Write down the impact this habit has had on your life so far. How has it been hurtful?

• Write down your commitment to changing the habit and what the consequences will be if you don’t change the habit.

• Create your “if-then” plan for transforming the habit. Write down what action you’ll take when you feel compelled to do your habit the old way.

For example, if your habit is yelling at your husband whenever he forgets to take out the trash, you might write about how changing that habit will improve your marriage. You might also note that it has hurt your marriage in the past, that you are committed to changing it, and that if you don’t change it, your marriage will continue to suffer. Your “if-then” plan might be “if my husband forgets to take out the trash and I want to yell at him, then I will pause, take some time alone, write about my frustration in my journal, and talk to him about that frustration when I’ve calmed down.”

Tool #3: Prioritize Completion

Olson’s next tool stresses the importance of leaving nothing incomplete in your life. Unfinished to-do lists and unmet commitments keep you stuck in the past and further away from meeting your goals. One way to approach completion is to make a list of everything relating to your goals that is undone and complete it all, one step at a time. That way, no tasks will slip your mind, no commitments will get left behind, and you’ll achieve completion.

The Completion Principle

Olson doesn’t explore the scientific explanation for why leaving things incomplete in our lives distracts us from future progress or success. According to the completion principle, we seek completion (whether consciously or unconsciously) because of our need for certainty and control. When something is incomplete, we feel uncertain and like we are not in control, keeping us in a state of anxiety about how to find a solution or ruminating about the consequences of not finding a solution. This anxiety keeps us focused on what hasn’t been completed and leaves little room for us to move towards future goals.

In contrast, completing things in the way described above makes us feel certain and in control, leaving us with the mental energy to take on new tasks and goals.

Tool #4: Celebrate When Things Go Right

Another tool Olson emphasizes is the importance of celebrating your successes, both big and small. For example, at the end of each day, acknowledge your progress and express gratitude to yourself for your efforts. This strategy keeps you motivated to continue achieving your goals. When you take note of your progress along the way, you feel more confident in yourself and are more likely to stay committed to your goals in the long term.

Celebration Versus Reward

Studies confirm that celebrating your successes leads to more success in the future, but it’s important to distinguish between celebration and reward. Rewarding yourself involves the use of extrinsic motivation (focusing on an outcome and motivating yourself with an external reward when you reach that outcome, like buying an Xbox or taking a trip). Extrinsic motivation can be limiting because it takes your focus away from the process and encourages you to rely on things outside of you for inspiration.

Meanwhile, celebration is the use of intrinsic motivation (focusing on the process of reaching an outcome, rather than just the outcome itself, and motivating yourself with internal rewards like joy and gratitude). Intrinsic motivation is a more reliable, consistent form of motivation that better supports long-term success.

Here are three ways to celebrate the process rather than rewarding the outcome on your path to success:

• Spend time with your community. Celebrate those in your life who support you. Nurturing your relationships with the people who encourage your success ensures that those relationships will remain strong in the future when you pursue new goals.

• Take time for self-care. Regularly doing things to nourish yourself keeps you healthy and motivated so you can stay committed to your goals and enjoy the process.

• Reflect on your growth. Celebrate how far you’ve come and who you’re becoming. This builds confidence, self-insight, and gratitude and teaches you to appreciate every step of the process rather than just the outcome of pursuing your goals.

Tool #5: Reflect on Your Past

A final tool Olson recommends is reflection. Use reflection to analyze your past, observe what has gone well and what has gone poorly, and make note of choices you’d like to repeat (as well as choices you’d like to leave in the past).

Olson notes that these thought processes allow you to make peace with what has not worked and become aware of what has worked so that you can do this again in the future. You can also identify when what you’re doing isn’t working and quickly course correct.

Is There a Wrong Way to Reflect?

While Olson presents reflection as wholly beneficial, the true picture may be more nuanced than this. According to organizational psychologists, some research shows that self-reflection makes people feel more unhappy, more anxious, and less in control of their lives. The more time spent reflecting, the worse these people feel.

How can that be? One explanation is that insight does not automatically accompany introspection. It’s possible for people to reflect in ways that lead not to deeper self-awareness or perspective, which is what truly creates growth and happiness, but to negative thought loops or selective perception (seeing only what you want to see).

How can you reflect in ways that lead to self-awareness? Research says it may be as simple as switching your reflective verbiage from the use of the question “why” to the use of the question “what.” Asking yourself “what” questions rather than “why” questions prevents you from fixating on and overanalyzing what isn’t working and why and instead keeps you focused on building forward momentum towards real growth.

For example, instead of asking “why did I fail to reach my goal?” ask “what can I do better next time?” This immediately gets you prepared to take new actions rather than getting you stuck in your head analyzing what went wrong.

Obstacles to the Success Over Time Philosophy

Now that you’ve explored the Success Over Time principles and tools you can use in pursuit of your goals, it’s time to explore the obstacles you may encounter on your path to success. According to Olson, the following are some of the most common:

Obstacle #1: Neglecting Small Disciplines Over Time

Olson states that the number one obstacle to achieving our goals is neglecting to take the small actions that support them. This obstacle occurs because it’s very easy to procrastinate small, important, but less noticeable actions in favor of more prominent or exciting actions (for example, extending your gap year instead of starting college). We simply don’t feel as motivated without clear validation of our efforts, which small steps often don’t provide—instead, we want instant gratification.

However, Olson argues that the more we neglect small actions, the harder it is to reverse course and move back in the direction of our goals. For example, one cigarette will not kill you, but there’s a good chance a cigarette or two a day for twenty years eventually will, and by the time you realize they’re hurting you, it may be too late to reverse it.

The Marshmallow Experiment and the Power of Delayed Gratification

As Olson notes, at the root of this obstacle is our need for instant gratification: The wish to feel good and rewarded now sabotages our success by driving us to neglect simple actions that have no immediate reward. It follows, therefore, that learning to delay gratification—in other words, accept that we won’t feel good until later but we need to complete small actions now regardless—will stop this obstacle in its tracks and lead to success.

Research confirms that the ability to delay gratification is a powerful tool for success. For example, in the 1960 Marshmallow Experiment, researchers offered children the choice between eating one marshmallow immediately or waiting to eat the marshmallow and receiving a second marshmallow as a reward for their patience. Further researchers conducted follow-up studies on these children and found that the children who had the patience to wait (or to delay gratification) grew up to have less stress, better physical health, stronger ability to socialize, and higher test scores. The follow-ups continued for over 40 years, and consistently, the children who chose to delay gratification experienced greater success in their lives than the children who chose not to delay gratification.

Obstacle #2: The Myth of Instant Success

In Olson’s view, another obstacle to success is the fact that our culture is so enamored with rags to riches stories that we too often buy into the illusion of instant success and fail to develop the discipline of applying real work to our goals. If you are looking for the instant gratification of a “ magic bullet” instead of looking to make steady progress, you will remain stuck in inaction, desperately hoping for your big break.

For example, consider the musician who seems to skyrocket to fame overnight. In reality, they practiced every day for most of their lives, performed in bars and nightclubs for years with no recognition, and had several failed albums before “hitting the big time.” The media doesn’t share every part of their story, and as a result, young musicians don’t understand the work that is necessary to achieve the success they want. Without being aware of the work necessary, aspiring “stars” either don’t put in the work, give up too soon, or both.

The Neurological Consequences of Focusing on Instant Gratification

Expecting the instant gratification of a magic bullet does more than just prevent you from doing the hard work necessary for achieving your goals. It also has a long-term negative effect on the way your brain works.

The brain is already set up to favor instant gratification over delayed gratification, releasing dopamine in a jolt of pleasure whenever we do something that instantly meets our needs. The more dopamine we get, the more we want it, and the more we seek out experiences that will give us that instant hit. This creates addictive, pleasure-seeking habits and makes it harder for you to control your impulses, leading you to seek even more instant gratification. This vicious cycle leads to chronic difficulties delaying gratification, making it harder and harder for you to develop the discipline to work towards your greatest potential for success.

Obstacle #3: The Loss of Faith

Olson believes that a major obstacle to success is the fact that once we reach adulthood, we often don’t have the faith in ourselves that we did as children. Consequently, we stop being willing to take the risk of making mistakes, lose belief in the possibility of success, and lose tolerance for the experiences of failure that are often necessary to achieve success. You can tell you’ve reached this state if you regularly have thoughts like “I could never do that,” or, “this is too difficult for me.” Over time, these thoughts make you feel less motivated to take the risk to pursue your goals, and more likely to give up on them.

According to Olson, giving up becomes easier the more you accept the idea of it, so find ways to re-inspire yourself if you start to lose faith and don’t entertain thoughts of giving up.

How to Keep Going When You Feel Like Giving Up

While Olson states that to achieve success, we must resist the urge to give up and our inclination towards losing faith, he doesn’t explore how to do this. How can we re-inspire ourselves when we’re petrified of failure and risk-averse?

One way to stay motivated when you’re afraid of failure or stop feeling inspired is to keep your dopamine levels high. Dopamine is the reward chemical, and the more dopamine your brain releases, the stronger your ability to persevere through challenging periods.

You can increase your dopamine levels using the following strategies:

• Every time you take an action towards your goals, visualize yourself getting a jolt of dopamine. For example, you might imagine yourself drinking a shot of liquid and becoming immediately happy. Research shows you can use visualization to train your brain to associate perseverance with pleasure.

• Reframe your perspective on moments of struggle. See these moments as opportunities to build confidence. For example, every time you take action towards your goals when you don’t feel like it, praise yourself for how strong and capable you are. This teaches you to associate work with growth, and growth with joy.

• Treat every positive action you take as something worth rewarding. For example, even the smallest actions, like getting out of bed on time or combing your hair, can be fuel for your dopamine tank. This trains your brain to release dopamine even when you’re not taking actions directly towards your goals.

Obstacle #4: The Envy of Others

Olson cautions that you should be mindful of who you share your dreams with: Share them only with those who you know from past experience will encourage and uplift you. Sometimes, he argues, when you share your dreams with others, they try to drag you down out of envy. The reason for this is often that they have dreams of their own that they are not realizing—they experience discomfort because the gap between point A (where they are currently at) and point B (where they want to go) causes tension. Ultimately, the upset they feel as a result of their own unrealized success causes them to reject yours.

A Closer Look at the Motivations of Naysayers

According to research, envy may not be the only reason people try to bring you down when you’re thriving. In some cases, their motivations have more complicated roots. Next time someone in your life gets sour about your success, consider the following possibilities:

• Your success makes them question their own capabilities. Psychologists believe that we judge our own capabilities by comparing our success to the success of others. When we compare our success to someone who has achieved more than us, we start to feel like we’re failing or worry that we aren’t good enough.

• Your success threatens their idea of the status quo. We are conditioned to buy into the “rule” that hard work leads to success. When we feel like we’re working equally as hard as people who have more success than we do, it tests our trust in the “rules,” forcing us into the discomfort of questioning our choices and beliefs.

Obstacle #5: The Pressure to Conform

The final obstacle Olson discusses is the fact that when you pursue your goals, you may be criticized for going against the grain. This will tempt you to people please for the sake of belonging, or to base your choices on the needs and feelings of others (in other words, to conform). To be successful, Olson states, be willing to go against the grain, ignore what the masses are doing, leave your comfort zone, and forge your own path, no matter how much criticism you might face from others.

An example of someone who found success without confirming is Albert Einstein. In his early life, people called Einstein “dopey.” Later in his life, people initially thought his ideas on relativity were absurd because they went against convention. Today, the world considers him a genius. You can bet that no one remembers the names of his critics.

Three Benefits to Being an Outsider

As Olson notes, from a young age, the world conditions us to conform to those around us. We aren’t encouraged to do anything outside of the norm (and if anything, we’re discouraged from doing so). That being said, there are a number of benefits to being the one who stands out in a crowd:

• Outsiders are already comfortable with being different. This makes it easier to successfully pursue goals even without the support, understanding, or agreement of others.

• Outsiders have access to unique perspectives. This means they are less likely to conform to the ideas of others and more likely to offer unique, innovative ideas that revolutionize the environments they’re in.

• Outsiders have the opportunity to surprise those who underestimate them. Because outsiders don’t operate the way everyone else does, people often expect less of them, making it even more impactful when they come up with great ideas or perform in exceptional ways.

The Success Over Time Philosophy: Action Steps

Now that you understand the principles, tools, and obstacles to the Success Over Time philosophy, you can initiate action towards your goals with full awareness and clear intentions. Use these two steps from Olson to put the power of the Success Over Time Philosophy into action.

Step #1: Create Something to Represent Your Vision

First, Olson recommends, write your vision of success out or create a piece of visual art to represent it. For example, make a vision board: a handmade poster full of images that represent your goals (they can be magazine clippings, drawings, photographs, or anything else visual that inspires you). According to Olson, creating a tangible representation of your vision is critical because it allows you to get clear and specific with your goals.

The Science Behind Putting Down Your Goals On Paper

Beyond simply being a useful way to keep yourself inspired on your path to success, putting your vision and goals on paper has other neurological benefits:

• It creates external storage. External storage is a physical way of storing information that allows you to review it whenever you want. The visual cue is a regular reminder of your goals and priorities.

• It supports the psychological process of encoding. This happens in the hippocampus, where the brain stores the written (or artistically expressed) information in your long-term memory.

• It means you benefit from the generation effect: the fact that we are more likely to remember things we’ve created ourselves versus things we’ve seen or read. You get a double dose of this effect when you write your goals down because first, you create an image of them in your mind. Then, you create a physical representation of that image.

Step #2: Plan Out Your Goals

Now that you have a clear sense of your vision, Olson recommends you create a step-by-step blueprint for carrying it out. Even if your plan is rudimentary and liable to change, it’s valuable as a starting point because it will help you to take initial action. If needed, Olson states, you can adjust the plan as you go along.

For example, if your goal is to run your own successful company, you might start by planning to make a simple website. The next step might be to write a blog on topics that relate to the goals your company will have. This could help you to build a foundational community that will buy your products or services when you reach that part of the journey. Later, after you get started, you might adjust the plan and start a YouTube channel to create this community instead. However, taking action on the blog still helped you to begin building momentum towards your ultimate goal of running a thriving business.

The Value of Planning Loosely (or Not Planning at All)

As Olson states, plans benefit your success because they give you a starting point: It’s not so much about creating the right plan as it is about taking action and narrowing down your possible options going forward.

This is a principle supported by research: According to a study at Columbia University Business School, the likelihood of taking action is 10 times higher when we have fewer choices available to us. We are more likely to take action if we stop contemplating all the potential choices we can make and just make any choice.

Furthermore, some of the most successful people on earth had little to no plan in the beginning stages of their path to success. For example, Mark Zuckerberg didn’t have a clear plan when he came up with the idea for Facebook: He was just taking action on an idea he felt excited about. He didn’t plan for or expect it to become an indispensable, global company.